SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10

SUSE recently released Service Pack 1 for its server and desktop versions,

and we got our hands on the desktop version. It performed well and comes with

support for Microsoft Word 2007 and also enables 'ImpressPresentation' to play

embedded videos.

Installation of SLED is easy and even a novice can install it without any

hassles. We installed it on a system which already had Windows XP SP2. To begin

installation we chose the 'New installation' option, SLED quickly scanned the

computer, detected that the test machine has Windows XP installed and provided

an option to shrink the size of the Windows partition. Keeping the Windows XP

partition intact, SLED gets installed on the rest of the drive.

Though the default installation of SLED is well suited to meet the

requirements for home and office users, you can even customize packages through

its user friendly interface.

If you need to switch to Windows XP, while you are working on SLED10 SP1,

then you must select the XEN virtualization option while installing this service

pack. After the install- ation is completed, the Windows partition was shrunk

and SLED was installed. Even upgrading SLED 10 with this edition was an easy

task.

On the boot loader, we found four options if we chose XEN for installation,

else three including Windows. We booted the machine with SLED having XEN kernel.

Booting sequence of this distro was similar to the booting sequence of the new

Fedora 7.

Like the latest Fedora 7, this distribution also has a 3D graphical desktop.

It comes with Xgl environment which adds features such as spinning cube,

application tiling, etc to SLED. It also provides two powerful desktop

environments Gnome 2.12 and KDE 3.5. In addition it also provides FVWM and TWM

desktop environments.

The desktop view is similar to that of Windows, which ensures that the new

user is comfortable while migrating from Windows to this new environment. Using

the XEN kernel you can run your guest operating system over SLED in both para-virtualized

and fully virtualized environments.



SLED comes bundled with many applications which any desktop or business user
needs. It has Novell's Open Office 2.1, which has support for Microsoft Word

2007, but doesn't support the rest of the Office 2007 applications. It provides

Evolution 2.6 as an e-mail client.

In addition to this you also find some commonly used software such as

RealPlayer 10, Helix Banshee player, and Acrobat Reader 7.

Using the new lockdown feature 'Sabyon,' system administrator can create and define policies for users

Bottomline: SLED 10 was already very easy to use, and SP1 has made it even

more useful.